Rhetorical Analysis Of Child Labor Speech By Florence Kelley

Political reformer and activist, Florence Kelley, gave her child labor speech to million of Americans at the Nation American Women Suffrage Association. Her speech consisted of the harsh working conditions that little children suffered day and night. Kelley’s speech conveyed that children should not be working and be exploited. The loss of innocence is conveyed when children have to work in order to earn their daily bread. Throughout her whole speech, she used a persuasive tone that evoked a great sense of pity for the poor children and guilt within the audience. Kelley addresses the problem and harsh conditions of child labor in her child labor speech by using clever strategies that consist of using emotion in order to impact the audience
to actually care about the dangers of child labor. The speaker is trying to appeal to the audience’s feelings when mentioning, “Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills…..”, within her speech. She purposely targets the feelings of the audience in order for them to feel pity, guilt, and compassion towards all young children. She uses, “ Tonight while we sleep,” in her speech in order to convey a great sense of guilt within all members of the audience. While they sleep soundly, little girls are working at late hours of the night in order to earn their daily bread, which arouses a sense of guilt between the audience. The speaker specifically uses young girls in her examples in order to connect more with women that have a sense of motherhood. They will feel great pity and encourage the idea of women being able to vote. Women will most likely want to vote in order to stop little girls from working under harsh conditions. The speaker tries to convey the audience that child labor is wrong in multiple ways by using logos and rhetorical questions within her speech. Within her speech she uses the quote, “What can we do to free our consciences? ... We can enlist the workingmen on behalf of our enfranchisement just in proportion as we strive with them to free the children.…”, in order to reason towards the audience. Her quote, “What can we do to free our consciences?”, makes the audience think about this question before she presents her logic. It makes the audience think of solutions in order to free the children and restore their innocence once again. In order to solve this issue, she says “We can enlist the workingmen … as we strive with them to free the children.” With this quote, the speaker’s logic consists of all of the people joining forces in order to reinforce women’s right to vote. Once again she persuades the audience to vote for women’s rights in order to get rid of child labor for good. Florence Kelley, a political reformer, and activist, tried to evoke individuals to stop supporting child labor. She delivered her speech at the NAWSA Convention in Philadelphia. Kelley wanted individuals to support women’s right to vote in order to ban all kinds of child labor. She persuaded the audience by invoking a great sense of pity and guilt by mentioning that children work day and night in order to feed themselves and their families. She made the audience feel guilty, but later offered a solution to stop all this madness. She offered that individuals should vote for women’s right to vote so that the sense of guilt within the audience could disappear. Kelley reasoned with the audience members by invoking strategies that consisted of using pathos and logos within her child labor speech.